Tangipahoa council awards coastal erosion contract

AMITE - The Tangipahoa Parish Council voted unanimously to award a $4.8 million contract to Bertucci Contracting Co. of Metairie to construct a stone breakwater designed to halt coastal erosion in the extreme northwestern corner of Lake Pontchartrain.

Parish engineer Maurice Jordan says a 10,000-linear-foot wall can be constructed from an area just west of the mouth of the Tangipahoa River toward Pass Manchac, which empties into Lake Pontchartrain.

The total distance from the river to the pass was about 18,000 linear feet but the federal Coastal Impact Protection Agency grant for the breakwater could not cover it.

Jordan said the stone wall will be about 30 feet wide at its base and eight feet wide at its peak.